82 ECP posts lying vacant for over a year

ISLAMABAD: Over a year has passed since the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had invited applications to fill in 82 vacant posts, but to date, it has not been able to do the needful.
One wonders, if the posts floated in the media in May last year are really important for the electoral body, then why it has failed to fill them despite finding a huge response from applicants. Against these posts, thousands of applications had poured in from across Pakistan.
The posts to be filled include director general training, deputy director protocol and assistant director protocol. It is interesting to note while the unoccupied posts are still to be filled, some more key posts have fallen vacant, including that of the director general elections and additional director general elections.
This happened when after the Inquiry Commission report was issued, which called for some drastic measures by the Election Commission to make it more effective and efficient body in addition to proposing certain reforms as well.
It also took the Election Commission several months to get appointed a full-time Secretary in recent weeks, when Babar Yaqub Fateh Muhammad joined its Secretariat here following the bowing out of Ishtiak Ahmad Khan in early November last year.
“The process is under way and only on last Sunday, hundreds of applicants appeared in tests and about 650 turned up here while the rest in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and some other cities,” said a senior ECP official, when The News sought his comments on the matter.
The ECP official contended that it was quite natural that they would like to complete the process as early as possible to gear up for the upcoming local bodies elections in the largest province Punjab and Sindh.
He did not agree with this correspondent that the posts might not be that important, as taken so much time of the Election Commission and yet new people have not been appointed. The ECP official maintained that the Election Commission, besides induction of new faces, had also decided to consider the option of permanently hiring services of the returning officers and presiding officers.
He continued that the proposal also included increasing the remuneration for them, as presently, for the nerve-wrecking job of organising and managing polls and consolidation of election results, they are paid a few thousand rupees.
“After the compilation of results and submitting to the Election Commission Secretariat, the returning officers, presiding officers are left on their own to return to their residences and offices and this sorry aspect is also to be looked into,” he said.